US Banks Should Beware the Ides of March

Commentary In the ancient Roman calendar, the Ides fell on the fifteenth of each month, and March 15 marks the day in 44 B.C. when the Roman emperor Julius Caesar was assassinated by conspiring colleagues in the Senate. The days around the Ides of March 2024 pose a threat to the banking sector, which risks the second and more serious phase of the banking crisis that began one year ago with the collapse of Silicon Valley Ban (SVB). The underlying problems uncovered last year in the U.S. banking system, especially among the regional and smaller community banks, have not been resolved but have only grown worse. The issues include the inability to raise deposit funding, increased dependence on emergency government funding, unrealized losses on securities portfolios, and growing losses on loans to the commercial real estate sector and the beleaguered consumer....